Gerald Stephens started Nurseries Caroliniana with his brother Ted in downtown North Augusta in 1973. It moved to a piece of family land in 2001. The nursery operates a wholesale business and a retail store, each specializing in selling hard-to-find plants.

Gerald Stephens started Nurseries Caroliniana with his brother Ted in downtown North Augusta in 1973. It moved to a piece of family land in 2001. The nursery operates a wholesale business and a retail store, each specializing in selling hard-to-find plants.

The business has two sides: a wholesaler that supplies landscapers with unique and hard-to-find plants, and a retail store that provides those varieties to individual customers.

The owners, brothers Ted and Gerald Stephens, started the nursery in 1973 in downtown North Augusta.

Ted is the scientific side of the business and heads the wholesale operation. Gerald directs the retail shop and provides landscape design, plant disease diagnosis and gardening advice to customers.

Plants are in Ted's blood, Gerald said. Even when the brothers were young, Ted was fascinated by plants and would save his pennies to buy exotic varieties. In fact, Ted saved $50 to buy a daylily when he was a young boy.

"I completely didn't understand why he used money for plants," Gerald said. "I told him, 'Ted, you could buy a go-kart with that money!'"

Ted kept his love of plants and graduated with degrees in ornamental horticulture from Clemson University. Gerald also went to Clemson and studied engineering, but when the Vietnam War broke out, he enlisted in the Army while Ted stayed in school.

When Gerald came back from the military, he planned to return to Clemson and finish his degree using the G.I. Bill, but Ted asked him to help start the nursery. Gerald agreed, thinking it would be a short-term project and that he would be back in engineering classes soon.

INITIALLY, THE RETAIL STORE carried few exotic plants and was a fairly average nursery. The brothers did landscape design, but in the early 1980s when the real estate market dropped, so did the nursery's design business.

Ted, who had been handling design, began to focus on horticulture and plant patenting. Gerald started using his engineering skills to give landscaping advice, and also began diagnosing plant diseases.

"To my surprise, I found I really liked it," Gerald said.

He stayed with the nursery, and in 2001 they moved from downtown North Augusta to their family's property on Mims Grove Church Road, where they were raised and both live.

The wholesale farm was already at that location, and moving the retail side made it easier to provide customers with any quantity of unusual plants.

Those plants are the nursery's claim to fame, and they are either brought over from Ted's annual horticulture trips to Japan or are discovered and propagated by the nursery staff.

Tokyo's climate is very similar to the Augusta area's, and the plants Ted brings back have an almost 100 percent survival rate.

"We're known for our unusual varieties," Gerald said.

The nursery has patented many plants, going through years of processing and paperwork in order to preserve a plant for the future.

"It's quite the process," Gerald said.

The nursery incorporates the name "Caroliniana" into almost all of its patented plants. The name means "of the Carolinas," and the nursery likes to emphasize native plants as much as wildly exotic ones.

The brothers' patenting and plant discoveries have made the nursery known nationwide, and it has shipped plants all over the United States and even to some nurseries in Japan and Australia.

"We regularly have customers come in from all over -- Charleston, Charlotte, Raleigh, Atlanta," Gerald said.

Those out-of-town customers are hard to anticipate, however, and when the retail store was downtown there were frequent emergency trips to the farm to get more plants for unexpected guests. The move made those annoying treks a thing of the past.

NURSERIES CAROLINIANA exudes a homey atmosphere, from the rustic pine siding exterior to the employees who are almost all family members. The land has been in the Stephens family since 1861, and Gerald said there's nothing like working on the land he grew up on.

"The property is your heritage," he said.

The nursery is full of Stephens family members: Ted and Gerald's sister, Donna, handles accounting; Gerald's wife, Susan, is in charge of the store's interior decorating; their son Shuford helps with landscape design and retail; and their other son, Nathanael, works with propagation in the wholesale farm.

Peggy Gillingham has been working for the nursery more than 30 years, and she said she's seen the Stephenses' work and genuine care for people pay off again and again.

The nursery has numerous customers that have been coming for years, Gillingham said.

"We've had kids who have grown up and are bringing their own kids," she said. "You see generations go by." She attributes that to the Stephenses' loyalty to their customers.

"It's all about being a smaller business and genuinely caring about the customer," she said. "Most of us are big plant people, too."

The staff at Nurseries Caroliniana is well-versed in plant knowledge, and Gillingham said getting to work with plants in such a comfortable environment is something she never wants to give up.

"I know I'd never have another job where I knew my boss has prayed for me every day," she said of the close bond among the employees.

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I've been doing business with the Stephens for probably thirty years. Mostly when I have a weed or disease problem with the yard. It's a lot cheaper to take your problem to them, get the right product, and advice on how to use it.

The store fails to mention other things that I remember when they were in North Augusta. They had a goldfish pond near the entrance and inside they had a bubble gum type machine where the children could buy fish food for a nickle to stand on the bridge over the pond and feed the fish. They loved it. They also sold Christmas trees (we bought several over the years) in December and may still do it at the farm, but I'm not sure. My wife was a regular and they had some talking parrots that were very interesting and fun. You could actually talk to the parrots and they would answer to certain questions. Big birds - did I say Big ? Yes. Huge. They moved them out to the farm and my wife thouroughly loved visiting to talk to the parrots. Gerald and his crew are so nice and friendly to do business. They take time to answer any questions when you ask and do not give you the cold shoulder. Also, I remember Gerald holding outside classes on Horticulture for customers. Thought that was great and don't know for sure if they still do that. My wife passed in 2003, but we had been involved with NURSERIES CAROLINIANA years before the move. Since my wife passed, being a male and not all males are that dedicated to yardwork/flowers, I rarily go out to the farm now (even though I did a couple of weeks ago to get some information). They are stuck back in the country, but it is worth the trip out for the education you will get by visiting. Bet you can't leave without buying flowers or yard items that they sell. When gardening starts you will find a great supply of plants there and again, they are very understanding while you try to figure out what you want to plant. Oh well, I'm talking like his parrots were so I'll just close saying that you need to make a trip out to the farm. You won't regret it. I promise.

These folks are a jewel in the crown of North Augusta.......Every since I moved here from Miami I have been a fan of the nursery....it took me a few years to learn the growing habits of the area..but these folks have guided me every step of the way.....my heart broke when they left the downtown area...my girls grew up feeding the koi fish...but we still take the drive out and purchase seeds and perinnals.......things do change...(but remain the same)...love you guys!!